


Vehicular Accident

by Callaeidae3



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidents, Bad Things Happen Bingo, First Aid, Gen, Head Injury, Heat Stroke, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Pre-Kerberos Mission, Vomiting, broken ribs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 19:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16980375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: Keith suffers some injuries after he and Shiro are caught out in a sandstorm while hoverbiking in the desert.





	Vehicular Accident

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by @hellisterxx!

“Shiro!”

The hoverbike flies into the sandstorm. Sand lashes Keith’s face, whips his bare arms, blinds him. The flight goggles keep the sand out of his eyes but they don’t do anything to help him see. A fresh wave of adrenaline courses through him as he tenses up, trying to keep the bike flying steady while he slows down.

He hits the brakes too suddenly. The hovercraft dips and slams into ground, flinging him over the handlebars and keeps spinning as it –

 

Pain. His head hurts, badly.

Keith opens his eyes to blue sky and one side of his goggles pushed up over his eyebrow. A shadow shaped like a person. The shadow tilts his chin up, opening his airways a little more. Keith’s head spins and he squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to be sick. He swallows dirt and sand, coughs. The one cough becomes a coughing fit and he’s simultaneously choking and needing to throw up.

Someone rolls him onto his side. He cries out, sharp pain lancing through his chest and shoulder. The person hastily rolls him onto his other side in time for Keith to start vomiting sand and lunch and stomach juice.

“…ndstorm…gonna need a….emergency…I’ll take him back…”

Keith focuses all his energy on latching onto Shiro’s voice. He grips it tightly in his mental grasp, focusing, focusing…

A tap on his collarbone. “Can you tell me where you’re hurting, bud?”

His brain registers the words, just, but he can’t figure out how to answer. He’s not throwing up anymore but no words are forming in his mind and none form on his tongue.

“Keith, can you hear me?”

All he can do is groan. It comes out as more of a whimper.

“Okay, stay with me.”

It’s hard. The sun is beating down on them. Keith forgot to fill up his water bottle before they went out on the ride so he’s no match for it. His plan had been to just get a good drink when they got back, but then the sandstorm had come out of nowhere….

He’s drifting. Confused. He can’t hear Shiro’s voice anymore, and then he can. Pressure is applied to his forehead, wrapped around it with steady (for the most part) hands. The pain pulsing in his ribs never leaves him. The spinning and pounding and faintness in his head doesn’t either. His right wrist throbs badly, as does his right ankle.

Shiro keeps talking to him but it’s becoming harder to focus. Harder to…

 

“…took us by complete surprise.”

“Good thing you two were riding together.”

“Never doubting the buddy rule again. Man, I haven’t been this shaken in a long while.”

Keith’s head spins. Throbs. Weighs like concrete. His throat burns, each breath rasping and cutting through his ribs. His brain’s full of swirling sand and hoverbike-meets-ground-meets-him. At least this time when he opens his eyes, the world isn’t spinning so much.

“Ah, Cadet Kogane,” says a doctor sitting beside him. “How are you feeling?”

 “..hiirrhh?”

Why he just mumbled ‘Shiro’ in reply, he doesn’t know, but as soon as he sees Shiro on the other side of the bed, sand in his hair and a stain of blood on the cuff of his sleeve, Keith relaxes.

“Keith, can you tell me what day it is?” the doctor asks.

Distracted, Keith zones out to the question. The oxygen mask on his face feels weird. He doesn’t like it but he’s too tired to lift his arms and take it off. There’s an IV in his hand. He wants that out, too. It stings. The bandage on his head can stay – the headache was worse without it. The rest of his observation includes the heavy smell of burn cream on his face and arms, a bandage cloth wound tight around his wrist and another on his ankle, an ice pack draped over each sprain.

He still hasn’t answered the doctor.

Shiro rests a hand on his shoulder, careful not to upset his ribs. “Do you remember what day it is today, Keith?”

Keith frowns. He has to think and thinking hurts, but then he notices he’s not wearing the gloves Shiro gave him as a present before they went riding – gloves he hadn’t had yesterday – and it’s not so hard to remember.

“Bir’hday,” he whispers. “O-o’tob’r…’tober twen’y three…”

Shiro’s relieved smile is worth the headache. “Yeah, buddy.” Shiro shifts in his seat and withdraws his hand. Keith misses the grounding weight of it on his shoulder. “Turned out to be a pretty cruddy birthday, huh?”

“Hmm…”

“Do you remember what happened before you passed out?”

Keith stares at Shiro wearily. “S-storm…”

“Yeah, that’s right. Anything else?”

“Hnnnnn? Bai…?”

“You remember the hoverbike ride?”

“Hmmm.”

It’s the hoverbike ride before they hit the sandstorm that Keith’s remembering, not the one back to the Garrison, but he doesn’t have the energy to explain that. The doctor pats his other shoulder. He says something about a concussion, more to Shiro than to him, Keith thinks, but he’s too tired and sore to care. He just wants all the hurt to go away.

“You’ll stay here with him, Lieutenant Shirogane?”

Shiro nods.

With a thumbs up, the doctor stands. “Alright. I’ll go and finish typing up the report and then I’ll come back to see how you’re both doing.”

 _Both?_ Keith squints at Shiro’s expression. He’s grimacing, sharing a guarded look with the doctor that Keith can’t make sense of. It’s not the first time Shiro’s made that expression and it has him worried. He’s too exhausted to be able to find the words to ask him what exactly he’s hiding, though.

He’s going to have to remember to ask when his head’s a little clearer.

Shiro sighs. “Well, we sure had an eventful day out there, didn’t we?”

“Than’s, Shirrh,” Keith murmurs. “Y-you saved me…”

With a small laugh, Shiro tilts his head. “You’d better not freak me out like that again, yeah?”

“S’rry.”

“You’re okay. I mean, you will be, but… man, you gotta stop getting yourself beat up, Keith. What are we going to do if I’m the one down next time?”

 _Isn’t it obvious?_ “Th’n I’ll save you…”

“I’m going to have to keep saving _you,_ first.”

“We’ll save each oth’r.”

“I think that sounds like a good plan,” Shiro says, smiling.

Keith looks him in the eye with as much strength as he can. He means it. It doesn’t matter what happens, there’s no way he won’t go out of his way to save Shiro if the situation calls for it. He hopes he’s able to convey that well enough for Shiro to understand and believe. Maybe he won’t be able to believe it straight away, but Keith hopes he knows he’s serious. He’d go far out into universe if it means saving Shiro.

If only he knew that’s exactly what he’d be doing four and a half years later…

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I will also be writing Shiro's POV of this :'')
> 
> (Update on that ^^^: I /plan/ to also write Shiro's POV, but I don't know when I'll get around to that, so for the meantime I'm going to mark this fic as 'complete')


End file.
